Blog Post #1

One of the most recent national news stories involving intellectual freedom is out of Washington state. (A WSJ article on this story can be found here.)The state Supreme Court in Washington has ruled that libraries can filter content on the internet. It's already required that public libraries receiving certain funds from the federal government must have some sort of filtering technology on their public computers. The most troubling part of the ruling seems to be that the library is allowed to refuse to remove the filter even for sites that feature constitutionally protected free speech. The court views the decision to filter internet access as a collection development issue. Instead of treating the internet as one whole resource, they feel that picking and choosing which sites to allow access to is the same as selecting which books to include in the collection.

To keep the library as "safe" as possible, the library should have a well thought out internet usage policy that will prohibit the viewing of obscene or illegal materials. Action can then be taken against a patron caught violating the internet usage policy. The library will also have to be aware of local laws dealing with materials that may be "harmful to minors". However, the plaintiffs in this case were "a Ferry County woman who wanted to do research on tobacco use by youth; a professional photographer blocked from using YouTube and from researching art galleries and health issues; and an Okanogan man unable to access his blog, as well as information relating to gun use by hunters." Discretion as to which sites are "acceptable" seem to be left to library staff. I would imagine this is sometimes not even a librarian, it could just be a library assistant staffing the reference desk. The ALA has a helpful resource for help in developing an internet usage policy here.